Vancouver police say they won’t bust down the doors of the city’s many illegal medical marijuana dispensaries April 1 when a new federal law will delegate weed production and distribution to a handful of licensed premises.

Coun. Kerry Jang — who closely watches health issues — minced no words, saying the city believes the federal law interferes with the right of people to access medicine. As a result, the city won’t make any extraordinary efforts to shut down “professionally run” medical marijuana dispensaries, even though most operate without city business licenses.

“It really is about access to medication, and the rules under the new federal law would essentially block people from getting their medication,” he said. “We just don’t see these dispensaries as something we need to shut down, as long as they are only providing marijuana to people who medically need it.”

The city’s position is being hailed by medical marijuana dispensary operators as a reasoned response to a new federal law they believe will force the production of medical marijuana underground.

The Vancouver Police Department said it is aware of at least 29 illegal medical marijuana dispensaries in the city but doesn’t raid them as long as they are only selling to people who have a medical marijuana permit.

“I don’t think for now there is any plan to change the current drug policy that is in place to fit specifically with these changes,” said Const. Brian Montague. “We don’t have plans for massive raids on April 2nd.”

Jang said the city doesn’t have a business licence geared for dispensaries, in part because of what he said were confusing Health Canada rules.

This isn’t the first time the city has defied the federal government on the issue of illegal drugs and how they affect society. Vancouver was the first city in Canada to adopt a “four pillars” approach to harm reduction around drug use, including a law enforcement policy that focuses on public safety and street disorder rather than busting people for simple possession.

Under successive councils since 2003, the city has defended the establishment of Insite, a supervised injection site in the Downtown Eastside that has helped curb HIV infection rates and overdoses. The facility won a 2011 Supreme Court ruling which found that Ottawa’s attempt to close it threatened to undermine the health, safety and rights of addicts.

Health Canada says the marijuana dispensaries represent a public safety issue because they are both illegal and unregulated.

But the police who enforce drug laws in Vancouver disagree. Montague said police have shut down three medical marijuana dispensaries in recent years that were found to be fronts for trafficking. But the dispensaries now in business don’t appear to be doing that, he said.

“The dispensaries all operate differently, but some of them you go into and it’s like walking into a medical clinic,” he said. “Everybody is wearing lab coats and somebody comes in with their license to possess marijuana medically, and they sell them the marijuana and it is like filling a prescription at your local pharmacy.”

Montague said police need to put their scarce resources toward public safety and reducing street disorder, not go after dispensaries that are providing medicine to people.

“From our policy and our perspective, if these places are operating in a professional, safe manner — and obviously the criminal element of the sale of marijuana is illegal — and if there is no additional element that would cause us concern for public safety, then we use our discretion not to enforce certain drug laws,” he said.

The city’s position on medical marijuana dispensaries comes as new information from Health Canada suggests that B.C. accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the more than three million marijuana plants authorized for production in Canada. Under the new law, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government will require the country’s 22,000 producers to stop production and force patients to buy their weed directly from a small number of licensed growers.

The law would not allow the commercial licensed growers to sell anything other than dried marijuana, even though many patients want or require weed extracts, tinctures and oils, claiming they are more effective.

A group of B.C. patients are suing Health Canada, arguing the changes will result in severe shortages of pot, higher prices, and will violate their constitutional rights.

Health Canada has countered in court documents that the current Medical Marijuana Access Regulations were never intended to permit the growth of an industry. The system came into place in 2001 with 85 permits; in 2013, more than 29,719 personal use permits were issued. Health Canada projects that by 2024 there will be 450,000 recognized users, creating a taxable industry with potential annual revenues of $1.3 billion.

Adam Greenblatt, the director and co-founder of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, applauded Vancouver’s position.

“The Vancouver Police Department and the city council have a very progressive and intelligent approach to cannabis that should be replicated in cities across Canada,” he said. “Marijuana is essentially decriminalized in the city of Vancouver. The unlicensed medical suppliers, the dispensaries, are even less of a priority.”

That view, he acknowledged, is not shared elsewhere in the country. In Montreal, Greenblatt is planning to shut down his dispensary and transition his customers over to licensed commercial grow operations.

“There is divergence in the dispensary community, and Vancouver is a special place for dispensaries,” he said. “I have observed there is more of a compliance with the (new regulations) on the east coast and not so much on the west coast.”

Dana Larsen, the director of Vancouver’s Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary and leader of the Sensible B.C. decriminalization campaign, said dispensaries aren’t worried about the April 1 deadline.

“Not for us in Vancouver, no. We are already in a grey area of the law and that area doesn’t get any different shade of grey come April 1,” he said. “I am sure people will continue growing marijuana after the law is passed. People have been growing marijuana in B.C. for decades.”

Larsen said a few dispensaries operate with city business licences, likely as health food stores. He said his shop on East Hastings doesn’t have a business licence but the city has never shown any concern because it operates professionally and won’t sell weed to anyone who doesn’t have a medical permit or a doctor’s note.

Larsen said Canada has a lot to thank dispensaries for.

“From my perspective, if we had not had dispensaries out there doing what they have been doing, we would not have this medical marijuana situation we have now. Dispensaries led the way and broke the trial for medical marijuana use as medicine,” he said.

“It is because of the sacrifices and bravery of dispensary operators that we now have medical marijuana system in Canada.”

Those producers now seeking Health Canada permits say they are not concerned about Vancouver’s illegal dispensaries. Anton Mattadeen, the chief strategy officer for MediJean, which has received preliminary approval to produce 90,000 kilograms of weed the first year at a new facility in Richmond, said there is no shortage of demand.

“I don’t see it will have an impact, and the reason I don’t is because from all of our research this is a very, very big market. We will be servicing Canadians across the breadth of the country,” he said. “The Vancouver market represents one specific area.”

But Mattadeen also believes patients will judge dispensaries for themselves. “It is one thing to say that their product has the best quality. It is quite another to have to go through the quality checks, and from what I can see this is something dispensaries do not go through today.”

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VPD to feds: illegal pot dispensaries not high priority

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